A.H. To insist that a storyteller stick to the facts is just as ridiculous as to demand of a representative painter that he show objects accurately. What's the ultimate in representative painting? Color photography. Don't you agree? There's quite a difference, you see, between the creation of a film and the making of a documentary. In the documentary the basic material has been created by God, whereas in the fiction film the director is the god; he must create life. And in the process of that creation, there are lots of feelings, forms of expression, and viewpoints that have to be juxtaposed. We should have total freedom to do as we like, just so long as it's not dull. A critic who talks to me about plausibility is a dull fellow.
F.T. It's sometimes said that a critic, by the very nature of his work, is unimaginative, and in a way, that makes sense, since imagination may be a deterrent to his objectivity. Anyway, that lack of imagination might account for a predilection for films that are close to real life. On seeing The Bicycle Thief, for instance, he's likely to think this is just the sort of thing he might have written himself, but that thought couldn't possibly occur to him in connection with North by Northwest. This being so, he's bound to attribute all kinds of merit to The Bicycle Thief and none whatever to North by Northwest.
A.H. Since you mention it, I might tell you that The New Yorker critic described that picture as "unconsciously funny". And yet I made North by Northwest with tongue in cheek; to me it was one big joke. When Cary Grant was on Mount Rushmore, I would have liked to put him inside Lincoln's nostril and let him have a sneezing fit.
By the way, since we're being so critical of the critics, what line were you in when we met for the first time?
F.T. I was a film critic. What else?
Francois Truffaut & Helen G. Scott - Hitchcock: A Definitive Study of Alfred Hitchcock, Simon & Schuster; Revised edition (October 2, 1985)
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